Each student at Cardinal Gibbons goes on a service trip with their advisory yearly. As an incoming freshman, the idea of having to spend a day with this small group of people can be a nerve-wracking thought, but truly it brings you closer to your classroom community and the community you are serving outside the school walls.
Walking into Freshmen Welcome Day as a first-year student, you meet your advisory. This is the only class that you stay with all four years of your high school journey. With around 13 students, it is a small, tight-knit community.
Freshman
The freshman year service trip experience is the same throughout: spending a day at Beginning and Beyond Child Development Center in downtown Raleigh. Here you get to take time to forget about classes or homework, and focus on others who might not get attention regularly.
“Going freshman year inspired me to want to go and join Franciscan Youth International and go see these kids weekly,” said senior Olivia Eney, “I have a girl, Mariah, who I love dearly. It holds a special place in my heart there to serve the community through Beginning and Beyond.”
Sophomore
As a sophomore, advisories go to serve at the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina, Catholic Parish Outreach, and the Salvation Army. In any of the sites you end up at, you get to serve for the community by organizing or prepping food and other necessities for others who don’t have it.
“The food bank showed us how the community can come together to help one another in times of need,” senior Bridget Mazzo said,
“We actually sorted baby clothes, and I had a really great time,” Eney said. “It showed me that the Catholic Parishes in our community nearby are so impactful helping thousands of families every week to escape poverty.”
Junior
Junior year is unlike the other years, because advisories get to choose how they serve. These options range from volunteering at the local animal shelter, to hosting a teacher talent show.
“My junior year, we went to the Marbles Museum and helped them set up stuff for the kids,” said Meredith Flynn. “It showed me how important these kinds of resources are nowadays and to help them keep off the screens, and help them engage and learn outside of the classroom.”
“My advisory set up a donation for the animal shelter, and then we got to visit, and it showed us how we really have to be stewards of God’s creation and come together to protect every little thing we have,” Mazzo said.
The junior year service trip lets the students take control of what they believe will better help serve the community, and is evident by the range of different outreach activities.
“We went to a farm and volunteered with the animals. It was good to help out the people that couldn’t hire others to work and do volunteer work,” senior Henry Newton said.
“I did the special Olympics and we came together with Ravenscroft and put together this special moment for Elementary school kids with special needs,” said Eney.
The wide variety of service is what makes junior year at Cardinal Gibbons so memorable.
Senior
Finally, as a senior on your last service trip you go build houses at Habitat for Humanity. In this experience students get to put together walls, paint houses, landscape, and everything in between.
“It was great to see how much progress, even though we were only there for half a day, that we added to the houses that have created an entire neighborhood,” said Newton.
All of these seniors have participated in and seen how much a service trip can mean to an advisory, and the community they are serving.
Service trips are not only a day to miss school, but a learning experience that students will remember for life and cherish bonds created with the small group of people they started their Cardinal Gibbons journey with.
